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Getting rid of motorbike rides

stclaus
Mt. Kenya

I ride an e-bike and I often see motorbike rides recorded as an e-bike ride.  They have ridiculous speeds (above 100 km/h) and lead all segments and I'm getting tired of flagging them. It would be great if these were cleaned up automatically based on maximum speed.

Thanks.

15 REPLIES 15

Rikmac111
Mt. Kenya

Why not add a motorcycle tag?

Rid568
Mt. Kenya

Can a marker be set within software that detects when speeds are implausible with peddle power for incline? A number or sections on Emtb sections have leaders who have used motorbike not electric bikes yet these remain as KOM’s one such section is added below with the leader heading uphill for 1.29km and an incline of 8.4% at 51.9km/h and only 4th having any semblance of pedal power!

https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.strava.com%2Fsegments%2F33137...

usr
Pico de Orizaba

I'm one of those who'd get wrongly flagged all the time if it was looking at HRM data, because apparently my body isn't sending a clear signal to sensors (I really need a device manufacturer to introduce "most plausible out of multiple HRM")

As a road cyclist my most common encounter with activities that should be flagged is mountainbikers who forgot to stop their tracker while driving home from the trailhead, so I believe that auto-flagging should focus on suggesting a "trim activity" fix.

I suspect that Strava is very reluctant with auto-flagging ideas because of false positives. But would that really have to be an issue? Don't make the process "this looks suspicious, let's delete!", make it a fix suggestion: "hey, this ride looks truly super-human! Has that really been your legs and nothing but your legs? If your answer is yes, awesome, please [confirm]. If it was a tracking mistake please take a minute to [trim start/end]" Bonus points if the trim UI gets an option to convert the trimmed part into another activity type.

Animal
Shkhara

There is a correlation between power and heart rate, and the two usually fit close to a line as described here: https://www.cyclinganalytics.com/blog/2013/06/heart-rate-vs-power-chart

It should be possible to detect rides done on e-bikes (If they've used a heart rate monitor)

Check this one: https://www.strava.com/segment_efforts/3000031675224289442

He's grabbed some KOMs with a heart rate of less than 100. That kind of performance should be easily detectable and exempted from segment calculations.

Hi Animal,

Thanks for your post!  We do have a system on Strava that detects and prevents many invalid efforts from appearing on segment leaderboards. We don't catch everything but we are always working on refining and improving this process.

If you see invalid times on segments, the first step is to use the activity flag tool.  If the Athlete doesn't correct their behavior after getting their activities flagged, you have the option to report that Athlete to Strava Support so we can follow up.

We had another Community Member start a conversation on this same general  topic here.  I'm merging your post into that one, so everyone interested in this subject can get together and discuss it in one place.

Thanks again for your contribution, we appreciate it!


Jane (she/her)
STRAVA | Community Hub Team

Hi Jane,

Writing this as a Strava paying subscriber.

Let's be honest: the system for auto-flagging is nearly inexistent. As Strava is built around network effects & QOM/KOM, it should be priority zero to deliver at least a working system.

As a developer myself, this is not rocket science. You should definitely do better, or just actually do something, in fact. Specifically as data quality is the core tenant for your business. I'm not even talking about the fact that this should have been done years ago. Relying on community to painfully flag activities all day does not make sense.

Best.

Exactly.

Why isn't Strava ashamed that their auto-flagging system is so ineffective. I've just had a KOM nicked by someone very clearly in a car. This should be resolved automatically and not waste my time having to manually check the "ride" and then manually flag it. Which I still can't even do on the app.

For what it's worth, I had some experience with "auto-flagging".  I had taken my bike in my truck for a group ride 2 years ago.  When we finished my hands were so cold and wet I couldn't use fingerprint recognition to unlock my phone and stop the recording, so I let it run as I drove home and planned to fix it later.  After a few minutes I got a message from Strava to say my Activity had been flagged as it seemed I was in a vehicle (this seemed to happen when I got to about 50 mph).  It gave an option to trim the Activity, which I duly did when I got home, and the flag was removed.  This all seemed to work quite well, although it requires the athlete having the ability to crop Activities.  If this auto-flagging is still in use it's not clear why I still occasionally see obvious vehicle use at the top of leaderboards.

I know, it's totally nuts.

I've not personally experienced it, but a friend has for a genuine ride.

It utterly baffles me that a genuine ride can get auto flagged, but not people going over 100km/h.

Having said that I agree with @usr above. Don't be scared of auto flagging people, most people I know would be chuffed to get a false positive. It is far more important to flag the fake rides, than worry users will get offended for being told they are speedy!

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